Matthew Pt. 67 - Kill Or Be Killed

Our little series we're doing here, Matthew part 67.

Turn your Bibles to Matthew chapter 18.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

That's not an apology, just to be clear.

I'm, we're in no hurry. Uh, Matthew chapter 18.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

It was, uh, part 67 in the series.

Yeah, Matthew chapter 18. The title of our sermon today is

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

Kill or Be Killed. So imagine being told that the

only way you could survive was by cutting off your arm or

gouging out your own eye. That's what we're going to see

today. This is the warning that Jesus

brings to you specifically about your sin.

Here in chapter 18, Jesus starts a sermon and we interrupted him

last week, but we're going to continue with the same thought

today. It started with the disciples

arguing about who's the greatest among us and asking the Lord,

hey, who's going to be the greatest in your Kingdom?

And Jesus moved the goal posts on him real quick and said

you're arguing about being the greatest in the Kingdom.

Let me clarify something. You will never even enter the

Kingdom of God unless you become like little children and humble

yourselves. So they're thinking, hey, you

know, we know we're all in like we're around Jesus.

We're church folks. We we know our sword drills with

our Bible. I mean, we pray, we go to the

prayer meeting, we do it like we're literally walking with

Jesus. We know we're good to go.

So but who's going to be the greatest?

And Jesus said, you have a giant misunderstanding.

You'll never even enter the Kingdom.

You're talking about what you're going to have for dessert.

You're not even going to have a meal unless you humble yourself

like a little child. So if you missed that sermon

last week, go back and listen to it on the podcast.

It's very important for all of us to hear and process.

But here Jesus teaches in in chapter 18 as he continues, as

he begins and continues this sermon.

Really he has a child with him the whole time, a little child,

a lot like a 2 year old who he brings to his presence.

But then he begins to teach us what Christian community should

look like. So this is an important passage,

maybe one of the most important chapters in the New Testament,

because it's teaching Christians how to be Christians together.

How can the church function? How can the church treat one

another? What should it look like?

So last week Jesus taught us that we should be childlike,

that we should be humble, that we should not be self seeking if

we even want to go to heaven, and that we can forget about

rewards unless we first humble ourselves.

In verse 5, if he continued the point, he said that we should

treat other believers or how we treat other believers is how we

treat Jesus. That's what he meant when he

said whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.

He went on to give a huge warning for anyone who causes a

believer to sin and said that it would be better.

It would be better, not equal to, not worse than it would be

better to have a huge millstone tied around your neck and that

thing thrown into the sea and you drowned in the sea, then to

cause and lead somebody else to sin.

And he continues his sermon without hesitation.

And that's where we pick up here in verse 7.

Woe to the world for temptations to sin, for it is necessary that

temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptations

come. And if your hand or your foot

causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.

For it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than

with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire.

And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it

away. It is better for you to enter

life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the fire

of hell. God, your word is so heavy and

it's so right. It's always the right thing at

the right time. So we ask right now that you

would perform the surgery that's needed.

And God, I pray that you would take us beyond the the safe

prayer. I pray you would take us beyond

the comfort level that we've been used to.

I pray that there would be real growth.

We're like the athlete who's been working out in the gym

alone forever, forever, forever, forever.

And then one day we have a coach come in and they actually make

US lift heavy. They actually make us do things

properly. Holy Spirit, we asked, he would

come in and actually see to it that we do what we should be

doing. Actually see to it that we

actually are going into the deep places and that we're allowing

your word to penetrate. That we're not being hard

hearted or stiff necked or prideful in any way.

Jesus, help us to take your word seriously.

God help me to preach it accurately, not to put

qualifications where you didn't put qualifications, but to say

what's true and what's right because you love your people and

because you want to save people from the very real hell and from

the very real torment of eternity that we all deserve.

But in your grace you have made a way.

So we thank you for grace. We thank you for the grace to

repent and I pray you would grant that to us today in Jesus

name, Amen. It is a grace to repent and this

is what the Lord calls people to do.

Jesus started his ministry with this passage, with this with

this message and he's ending his ministry with this message.

Remember the Sermon on the Mount.

That was the first time he had ever said I want you to cut off

your hand. I want you to gouge out your eye

and he didn't give the qualification.

He didn't explain it any any further and say, no, don't mean

like every concordance that I read says like, no, he it's

important to state that no, he wasn't teaching you to cut your

arm off. Like I don't think that's a big

problem that we have in the body of Christ.

You know, I think if that became a major issue in the church, we

could start to write some books about it.

But that's not the error that we're usually running into.

But what is Jesus doing? Jesus is finishing his ministry

the same way he started teaching and preaching repentance.

This is Jesus. I've told you before, if I was

to map out my own sermons and I didn't preach verse by verse and

just say, what am I going to do a series on?

What should I do? A series on, What should I do a

series on? I wouldn't preach on healing as

much as the scriptures make me preach on healing.

And I would not preach on sin as much as the scriptures make me

preach on sin, which is why that's the temptation.

Whenever you do preach topically, you don't always find

those sermons on sin. I want you to be encouraged.

I want you to be built up. I want you to feel good and I do

want you to be encouraged. I do want you to feel good.

It feels good to feel good, right, Church?

I mean, if I, I felt bad and I felt good, I mean, we all choose

feeling good, right? I mean, that's like preferable.

It's like objectively better. And yet I shouldn't feel good if

I'm not supposed to feel good. So Jesus is willing to bring

that review. Jesus is willing to bring that

clarity to us. We talked last week about being

childlike. We need to be childlike in order

to receive what Jesus teaches here because it's a very strong

word, but it's a very important word.

He says woe to the world for temptations to sin.

Woe. We've seen him give woes before.

This means doom. This means gloom, this means

damnation. This means torment.

This means it's bad for you. It this means this is, it's

going to be so bad for you that I feel sorry for you.

It's going to be so awful for you that I, I feel pity for

what's coming to you. Remember, he pronounced woes on

different villages. He pronounced woes on different

towns. Woe to you.

Woe to you. Why?

Because you didn't believe. Because you wouldn't repent and

believe, He said. I perform mighty miracles in

you. Will you be raised up?

No. You'll be brought low and you'll

be judged by others who you thought to be more wicked than

you. Woe to the world for temptations

to sin. Sin has infected every single

part of our lives. Sin has infected our minds.

Sin has infected our wills. Sin has infected our emotional

life. Sin has infected our bodies.

Sin has infected our spirits. That's why the Bible calls us

dead. We were dead in our trespasses

in our sins. What is sin?

Sin is anything done in thought or in deed that is contrary to

God's will. Man, that's a big category,

isn't it? Yeah, there's a bullseye and

it's really, really small. God's will is the bullseye, and

sin is everything else that misses the mark.

Sin is the problem in the world that causes every other problem

in the world. So we could ask ourselves, hey,

what's the biggest problem with whatever the country or the

government or the church or you or your family or whatever,

ultimately, we could trace it all back.

The short and simple answer is always going to be sin.

It's sin. Well, yeah, but that flushes it

out like that. Yeah, sure, there's some final

outcomes, also sinful, But the root of The thing is also sin.

Sin is the problem of every problem.

It's the root behind the thing that's the thing that we're all

facing. Romans 512 says therefore, just

as sin came into the world through one man, and death

through sin and death, and and so death spread to all men

because all sinned. This means that I'm infected.

This means that you're infected. This means that we are all

infected with sin. Romans 623 for the wages of sin

is death. So this means that sin earns us

something. It certainly does.

There's a paycheck for all of my sin.

There's a payday for all of your sin as well.

The payment is death back to verse 7 here in Jesus point to

declare woe to somebody is to say you will get severe

punishment, you will get severe judgment and I feel sorrow for

you because of what's coming to you.

This is how serious sin is. God hates sin and he will

destroy sin and sin are together in hell for all eternity, all

eternity. There will be no end.

Judas, for example, has been in hell for 2000 years, burning,

tormented. He will never escape.

Today may as well be day one for him.

There's no departure from that pastor.

That's really discouraging to think about my lost loved ones.

Yeah, it sure is for you and for me both.

Welcome to the weight of the reality that we live in and that

the Scriptures keep bringing to our remembrance.

This is real. Our eternity is real.

Our life here is short, it's brief, it's momentary.

I've seen pastors that have stretched a rope across the

front of the church before. I've done it before.

Stretch a rope across from in the end, have people hold it up

and you make a tiny mark on the marker and you say this is

eternity. This is your little time.

This is your 80 years, this is your 20 years, this is your

whatever. This is it.

Time is stretching forever in both directions.

We have eternity to be with the Lord.

Jesus is bringing that reality home.

He's saying what man? Who cares what you'd have to

sacrifice for for the eternal gain?

Who cares what would matter for the long play instead of the

short play? God hates sin.

He's going to destroy sin and Sinner in hell forever.

But what is the point Jesus making here?

Woe to the world for temptations to sin, for it is necessary that

temptations come. So when Jesus says for it is

necessary, what he means is it's inevitable.

It's not necessary in the fact that God wants sin to take

place, because He doesn't. But what Jesus is saying is it's

inevitable it's going to happen. It's not the kind of thing that

anybody can stop at this point because of Adam's sin and

because of all of our sin. We're born with this sinful

nature. Well, I was led to sin by them,

or I was led to sin by them. I was led to sin by my own

heart. And if nobody else had done it,

I still would have done it. I didn't need to be taught how

to sin. I always knew it.

It comes up within me. It's been said that the human

heart is an idol factory. So I can destroy a bunch of

idols that I have. And next week my heart will

start to rebuild another one. It'll start a new idol project

that I didn't even see coming. And I go, where'd that come

from? It's necessary means it's

inevitable that sin will come into the world.

But his point is, don't let yourself be a vessel that brings

it. Temptation will come to people,

but do not be a vessel for it. That would mean, of course for

myself, but also for my influence of you.

That would mean you to look out for you, but also watch out for

your influence of others. So it's one thing when you sin

on your own, It's another thing when your sin has influence on

others. This is a, this is a worse sin

if the Lord's will is the bullseye, the tiny bullseye dot

to miss the mark. There's varying degrees of

missing the mark, aren't there? Yes, there's, there's pretty

close to the mark, but still missing the mark, still sin.

And there's farther away from the mark.

We've talked about this many times.

It it's a common phrase to say, well, sin is sin.

Well, that's a true statement, but I don't think it means what

you think it means because all sin doesn't have the same

punishment in the sense that the consequences are different now

and later. Eternity is still sin.

Oh, there's still, there's still punishment in hell for eternity,

but there's even levels of judgment in the way the Lord

will do that. There's mystery there, but

there's enough in Scripture that I have, I do have conviction

that that there is some sort of measurement that the Lord uses

in his punishment. But I know that we burn forever

in the lake of fire as sinners and I know that the worm never

dies. So these are horrible terrors

that Jesus talks about that he wants to warn people of.

Don't be a vessel for sin. So this means you have authority

and you have influence over others.

You need to watch carefully how you walk and seek God with

humility, with a spirit that mourns over sin.

David was a man after God's own heart.

It's often said. Did David sin?

He most certainly did. But what makes David so unique,

what makes David so tender hearted is that very fact.

He was tender hearted that when David is confronted with his

sin, you see brokenness. When David is confronted with

his adultery, you see brokenness.

When David is confronted with judgment, you see brokenness.

You see humility over and over and over.

You don't see a perfect man, but you see a man who will be cut to

the heart and say I am guilty. I bear the guilt.

I will pursue the Lord in repentance.

We need a spirit that mourns over sin, a spirit that's afraid

of sin, a spirit that hates sin. Also, since we know that

temptation is inevitable, what else should we do?

Since we know temptation is coming, we should have a plan

ahead of time. You are going to be tempted to

sin. You're going to be pastor.

That's a bad confession. No, it's inevitable.

It's it's necessary that sin would come.

This is real life. This is not anything you can

escape. If Jesus can't escape temptation

to sin, you're certainly not going to escape temptation to

sin. I'm certainly not going to

escape temptation to sin. Don't be surprised when you're

tempted. Don't be shocked, man.

Where did that come from? Have you had that experience

before? I have, especially if it's a new

sin. I think when it's something that

you haven't struggled with, when it's something that's not common

in your personality or it hasn't been common in your life, when

it can get a hold of you, go. That was unexpected and in those

moments I, I find it personally, I find it easier to get quick to

repent in those moments because that sin was foreign to me in

some ways. I'm going that was different.

Like I'm so aware of the filth of it because I haven't been

stained in that way maybe before.

And now I'm like, this is gross. Lord help me, God, get this out

of me. That came, where'd that come?

Where'd that come from? Came from in there somewhere.

Get that thing out of you. Maybe it was shot as an arrow.

Like we said, I can't stop the bird from flying over my head.

But I'm going to make sure he can't land.

I'm going to make sure he can't build a nest.

I'm not going to make sure. Hey, you seem interesting.

Never seen that kind of bird before.

Come on down. Let's get comfortable with one

another. Whoo.

That's a dangerous place. Best time to pull that weed is

right at the beginning, am I right?

My landscaper guys? I mean, I don't know a lot about

work in the land, but I know that much right at the

beginning. Now's the time so this thing

doesn't become a tree. And God forbid that I start to

that, I start to build that this thing builds shade and it starts

to influence others. And the time my roots start to

impact someone else and cause and tempt them to sin as well,

and tempt them to sin as well. So we know temptation is coming.

Don't be surprised. Don't think you're too holy to

be tempted. No one is too holy to be

tempted. Ephesians 613 Therefore, take up

the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in

the evil day, and having done all to stand firm, take up the

whole armour of God. So we do have some defensive

measures. I talk to you a lot about the

offensive measures of the church, and that's a good thing.

And that's right. I think that's an error that the

church misses off of. We're not on offense enough.

We're just hiding in a hole and waiting on it all to be over.

We need to be on offense as a church, but we also need to be

aware that our enemy goes around like a roaring lion and he is

looking to devour you and he's been at this for a while.

If he got Adam, who was holy and literally was without sin, if he

could get Adam to do it, how much more me with a sinful

nature in those temptations, Pastor, hasn't that been taken

away in Christ? It sure has.

That's a good point. We've been made new in Christ

and our spirit is new, and yet I've got the same old flesh.

So if you get saved today and you had bad breath before you

got saved, you're going to have bad breath after.

If you had brown hair before, you had brown hair after, and if

you had a lot of habits and temptations and ways of living

and ways of thinking, many times those are the things that

happened as a sanctification process of growth, maturity, and

walking with the Lord, a continual crucifixion.

We have to be living sacrifices. So there's some mystery in here

where apparently we're made new, perfectly righteous in one

sense, and yet why in the world do we have the New Testament

letters written to all these churches with all this sin?

What is going on? Well, we still have the

capability to sin, and Jesus is warning US against it.

Because if I continue to live in sin, I've revealed that really I

was never saved to begin with. Or I may have walked with the

Lord for a season, legitimately loving Him and following him.

And yet the way you get saved is the way you stay saved by grace

through faith. So it's over by faith through

the grace of God. And if my faith stops.

So pastor, what are you saying? I'm saying not once saved,

always saved. I want to make that explicit so

there's no mystery or wondering what what point I'm trying to

make. Those who endure to the end will

be saved. So this is another reason I want

to stay on guard. It's not that the Lord isn't

strong, it's just that the Lord by his own choosing, has wanted

to interact with our faith and our walk and our sanctification.

So we must stand firm. 1st Corinthians 1012.

Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he

fall. I'm standing, I'm standing good,

but tomorrow's another day. So be confident in the mercy of

God for tomorrow. I don't want you to be a fearful

church, but also your our enemy. He'll be prowling again

tomorrow. So I'm so thankful that you

stood firm today. Praise God for it, for his

grace. That was the race of God.

But your enemy will be back tomorrow.

He is like a a stray dog. He will keep wandering into your

yard and it unless you keep establishing the boundary and

keep kicking him out over and over and over and you go, I beat

the devil, Jesus beat the devil. And yet you have to keep

enforcing the victory of Christ in your own life.

The devil is and has been defeated.

You do have authority, but that authority doesn't just look like

shouting at principalities and powers.

That authority looks like the authority to walk in

self-control and to cut off limbs and to gouge out eyes so

that I would prevent myself from being lured by him.

Why? Why would I take it that

seriously? Because Jesus said it'd be

better to do that than to go into eternity with all of my

limbs and myself fully intact. Keep going here.

We're in verse 8. The point I will make is yes,

the Lord has already taught us elsewhere that sin comes out of

our hearts. Remember when they said your

disciples, they eat with unclean hands and they eat unclean food.

And Jesus like look, it's not the thing that went into their

mouth that made them unclean. It's the thing that comes out of

the heart that makes you unclean.

But he's being hyperbolic here or overstating things to make

the point. He's saying do whatever it takes

to protect yourself and to protect others.

Verse 8. And if your hand or your foot

causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.

It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with

two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire.

And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it

away. It is better for you to enter

life with one eye than with two eyes, and to be thrown into the

hell of fire. No one will be in heaven missing

an arm. No one will be in heaven missing

an eye. The point is, it would be

better, though, to take whatever sacrifice necessary.

The most extreme problem in the history of the world that causes

every other single problem in the world should get the most

extreme measures we have available to us.

Sin is the biggest problem I've ever faced.

It should get the biggest and most extreme response from me.

It is kill or be killed. This is how things work with

sin. 22 years ago. It'll be 22 years next month.

There was a Mountaineer. He was climbing in Utah.

His name was Aaron Ralston. He was hiking.

He was rock climbing a Canyon called Blue John Canyon.

So picture this guy up on this plateau and then there's this

big beautiful crack in the earth and he was just descending down

into it. There's like this big boulder

here, like right at the top. He checked it with his foot,

super solid. It didn't move.

So then he begins to start to climb down it, maybe like 15

feet or so. And as he's hanging down from

this and get ready to climb down, it shifts and he's

tumbling and falling. And it's tumbling and falling.

An 800 LB boulder. And when he lands on the bottom,

the 800 LB boulder has crushed and pinned his arm to the right

side of the Canyon. So we're talking to Kenyon.

That's like this big, you know, it opens up, it opens up, it

thins out. And now he's pinned here.

He says for the first hour, he screamed for about an hour.

Anybody ever see the movie 127 hours?

So you you're familiar some with that story?

It's it's him in that situation. He says he screamed and yelled

and cussed and just could just full freak out for about a full

hour. And then from that point on, he

he tried to chip away at the rock.

He had a multi tool on him. He tried to chip away at the 800

LB boulder. Just desperation, just hope,

hopeful. And after a couple hours of

that, all he had was a duller multi tool and realize that's

not happening. And then he realized his only

other option and he put it right out of his head.

He said, I can't cut off my arm. I'm not doing that.

And then one day turned to two and two days turns to three.

Dehydration, starvation. He didn't tell anybody where he

was going and he wasn't hiking with anybody else.

He left a note for his roommate. They'd said Utah, so it's kind

of a big place to search. And they certainly don't know

that he's down in a crack in the earth.

So day three, day four, day five, he finally realizes I'm

close to death. I can feel it.

I can feel how close I am. And he finally decides I'm going

to do it. Like, why?

Because I can lose this or I can lose everything.

This is the perfect example of what Jesus describes for us.

So Aaron Ralston, he made that decision on that fifth day,

using his dull pocket knife to amputate his own arm.

The problem was, it gets graphic.

He gets to the bone and he can't do anything with it.

So he has the great idea to pry and tell one there's 2 bones

there and then pry again until 2.

His Mama was thankful that he did it.

His wife is now thankful that he did it.

His children are now thankful that he did it.

He has life. He has a good life.

He has life at all because he was willing to do the extreme

thing, the graphic thing. Pastor, that's graphic.

Jesus was graphic. First, he said in front of

little kids, you need to gouge your eye out.

And he kept repeating the point. It's better to do this.

It's better to do that than to to not do that.

It's graphic. It's rough.

Yeah. It's almost like Jesus really

wants to land the point. It's almost like he really wants

you to believe it. It's almost like he really wants

us to know how serious it is. He shows us that there is a

choice to be made, and we cannot have it both ways.

We cannot keep our sin and live. Pastor, don't we believe that

we're saved by grace? We absolutely do, and I'm going

to keep reaching the text in front of us today.

Of course, we're saved by grace. And yet when I've been saved by

grace, I want to walk closer to the Lord.

And walking closer to the Lord will mean maturity and

sanctification and more submission to Him.

All the days that I walk with Him, there's more submission,

There's more holiness. Not in comparison to anybody

else, just in comparison to where I was and in comparison to

the target, the very, very tiny bull's eye.

There's like there's space you throw darts, there's space for

like 1 dart to land in the Lord's bullseye.

It's his way. That's the only way Jesus has

been, has been consistent throughout his whole ministry.

You can't gain the whole world and keep your soul.

This isn't a new message from him.

It's the same one he's been preaching.

You cannot manage your sin church.

You have to kill it. That's good.

I think I can kind of get kill it, kill it, kill it, yeah, But

I've been managing for so long. You don't believe Jesus.

You don't believe Jesus. It's a lack of love for him that

causes me to think that way. We can't pray, deliver us from

evil and then not be willing to walk in obedience in the way

that he wants to deliver us from evil.

God just miraculously move this 800 LB boulder.

God told you to cut your arm off.

That's what He's telling you to do right now.

Well, I just wish the Lord would.

Well, you can wish a lot of things, and you can hope for a

lot of things, but the Lord has given us a command.

You cannot negotiate with temptation.

You have to amputate it. It seems unthreatening when it's

just temptation, but then you start to tolerate and it becomes

sin. You cannot see the infection

that's happening under the skin. It happened underneath first

before it showed up on the outside.

And once you finally see it on the surface, it will be too

late. Or the worst of all, you won't

care. That will be the judgment of God

against you when you don't even care.

We've talked about that before. What's the judgment of the Lord?

What's the unpardonable sin? It was the fact that you could

get to the point where He no longer extends the grace of

repentance. Did God make you do it?

No, you made you do it with your own hard heart.

And the Lord says, I've been pulling, I've been pulling, I've

been pulling, I've been pulling. And you continue to just say no

and give God the middle finger. And God says this is the

judgment. I'll let you have everything

that you say you wanted. James chapter 1 verses 14

James 1:14–15

through 15 says each person is tempted when he is Lord and

enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it is

conceived, gives birth to sin and sin when it is fully grown

brings forth death. So here we have the the whole

process of temptation to sin. And then so there's degrees of

sin, sin when it's fully grown. So there's a sin that's not

fully grown, but then sin that's fed.

Are you feeding that thing? I'm feeding you.

I feed you. I feed you.

So the person who feels as if they're managing your sin,

you're not managing your sin. You're feeding the lion that

will one day eat you. That's all you're doing.

It's a cute little lion. It is a cute little lion cub.

He can't hurt me. I know he can't, Not yet.

But you're going to keep feeding him.

You get you don't manage sin. Sin is managing you.

If you're not careful, crouches and waits to destroy.

In Scripture, we often see repentance referenced as someone

repenting in sackcloth and ashes, sackcloth and ashes.

So sackcloth was like a goat's hair garment and it was wildly

uncomfortable and it was not worn for any sort of fashion

purpose. And the ashes have to do with

just a humility and a filth. So I would go to the ash pile,

go to the fire that's gone extinguish.

You know how bad ash stinks. You know how bad it is.

So I've gone. I've gone.

Now I've put on sackcloth. And everybody's noticing why.

That was the whole point. This was a public repentance.

I want you to know this is the purpose.

I am embracing shame in front of you.

I am humbling myself. Not like, oh, I'm just going to

deal with this between me and the Lord.

Oh, yeah. Like you've been dealing with it

between you and the Lord for 20 years, and you're still not free

of it because you're not willing to go to the measure that will

actually free you of it. But in sackcloth and ashes.

I rub it in my hair and I rub the ashes on my face, and people

say they're not going. Oh, good for him.

He's walking in repentance. It's.

Yeah. What'd you do?

I'll tell you everything. Oh, that's really bad.

Yeah. It's worse than you know, It's

worse. God forgive me.

God have mercy on me. It's a public repentance to my

shame and praise God also to my forgiveness and to my salvation

and to my freedom from the thing that I was.

Well, I'm going to manage it. I'm going to manage it and I'm

going to do all the measures that feel safe.

I'm going to chip away at the boulder with my multi tool.

That's how I'll get out of this mess.

You can't. You can't manage it.

Sackcloth and ashes, what's the point?

It's maximized humiliation, not a little bit, not a baby step

towards repentance. How do I maximize my humiliation

for this thing? This is why we're supposed to be

like little children, not worry about how you look.

Sackcloth and ashes. Repentance is a real repentance.

It is not a private repentance. And it brought change and it

brought breakthrough. Look at Nineveh, Jonah comes in

40 days. The heaven will be destroyed.

What do you say? He's kind of mumbling.

He doesn't really wants to hear. 40 days and then of will be

destroyed. 40 days and then of will be destroyed.

Oh my goodness, God have mercy. And the king of that city and

the whole city, nobody's going to eat.

Nobody's going to drink. Everybody put on sackcloth and

cover yourself in ashes. Maybe the Lord will relent.

Did the Lord change his mind? The Lord loves repentance.

The Lord is gracious and kind and merciful.

And the Lord says, OK, King Ahab, filthy, filthy, filthy,

wicked, wicked, wicked man, sends the prophet.

You're going to die. Ahab repents and sack, claws and

ashes, humbles himself, humiliates himself.

The Lord comes to the prophet. He goes, hey, man, you see how

he's humbled himself? I'm not going to do what I said

I was going to do. I'll do it to his son and to his

son's generation. Pastor, that doesn't seem fair.

Good news. His Son can repent, you can

repent, you can turn from it, But the Lord saying the cup of

wrath has filled up, it will be poured out.

Sin is inevitable, judgment and wrath is inevitable.

Oh, except for the grace of God. Amen.

But the grace of God is not cheap.

It costs Jesus everything. And it will cost you your arm or

your eye, it will cost you pride, it will cost you your

way. Yes, Amen.

Luke 1810 through 14, two men went up to the temple to pray.

Jesus tells us 1A Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

So already in his listeners ears they're going the good guy and

the bad guy, the Pharisee and the tax collector, every Jewish

listener soon as they heard that story like oh the tax collector,

we hate those guys. Bunch of traitors.

And they were they did betray their own people.

They were greedy. They were they were thieves.

All the things Jesus even tells us we're going to get later in

in chapter 18 and he's going to say, hey here you actually when

people don't repent eventually I want you to treat him like you

treat a tax collector. Jesus said to treat him how

you're already treating these other.

We'll get there. Don't make me preach at sermon

yet Two men went up to the temple to pray 1A Pharisee and

the other a tax collector. The Pharisee standing by

himself, prayed this God. I thank you that I'm not like

other men, extortioners, unjust adulterers, or even like this

tax collector. I fast twice a week.

I give tithes of all that I get. But the tax collector standing

far off would not even lift his eyes to heaven, but beat his

breast, saying, God be merciful to me, a Sinner.

Jesus says, I tell you, this man went to his house justified

rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself

will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

This is a loud repentance. We need loud repentance again in

the church today. That's what revival is not.

There's a bunch of prayer meetings happening and

everyone's attending. OK, there's a bunch of worship

services, They're preaching 4 sermons a day, and the church is

packed. Is there allowed repentance?

No. Then it's not bad.

But it's not revival. Because revival is just the

ultimate glorification of the Lord and the ultimate

humiliation of everybody else, which is all the gospel ever

does anyway. If the gospel doesn't crush your

ego, then you don't have the gospel.

If Jesus isn't the hero, then you don't have Jesus.

You have something else. You have some God you've created

in your own mind. Loud repentance is real

repentance, for sure, because there's nothing safe about it.

It just puts me low, puts me in the bottom.

It puts me desperate. It reveals that I actually

believe that eternity is coming, that there is a hell to pay, and

that I really believe Jesus's words about the dangers of my

sin. Sin is not passive, and we're

closing. Your sin will kill you unless

you kill it in this life or in the next.

What a tragedy, what a nightmare, what a horror.

It's too terrible to think about, but it is an important

thought experiment, which is why Jesus even tells parables about

a man who's burning in hell and he's saying, I wish somebody

could just dip their finger and cool my tongue.

But what a worse tragedy to go to hell when you thought you

were going to heaven. Many will say, Lord, Lord, and

he'll say, I never knew you. Yeah, I don't know who that's

going to be. It couldn't be me.

The humble heart says, God, is it me?

God, bring me close. God, what sin is there?

What barriers are there? What, what games am I playing In

my heart, in my mind? What does it look like?

What do I need to do? Is there anything that I'm

keeping from you? What do you need to amputate in

order to protect yourself against temptation and sin?

What measure? Here's the better question.

What measure haven't you been willing to take to be free from

the thing that you say I want to be free from?

That's the measure that it's going to take.

If you wanted freedom, you'll do the thing that you've been

unwilling to do because that's the one it's going to cost.

Aaron Rouston was like, I'm getting close to death, OK,

What's the point of just dying here in this cave?

Time to lose the arm. But he wasn't convinced until he

felt death. And that's everybody's problem.

God's word isn't enough. They're going, oh, I'll get that

straight later. You think so?

You hope so. You wish what measure seems too

extreme for you. Identify that measure and know

that that is the measure that it will take.

This is too extreme. Jesus says enter by the narrow

gate, for the gate is wide and the way is easy.

That leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.

He put it everywhere. This is not one text.

This is all the message and ministry of Jesus.

What will it take? The Holy Spirit's putting His

finger on something right now for you.

I don't know what it is. I don't have to, but He's

putting His finger on something right now.

Just give it to Him. Do it.

Commit to that obedience. It's yours, God.

I don't want to give that up. Give it up.

Give it to him. I don't want to make that phone

call. I don't want to confess my sin

to that person. I don't want to whatever.

I don't want to delete that app. I don't want to get that

software. I don't want to repent in that

relationship. I don't want to repay that

money. You know what's extreme?

An innocent man being murdered on a cross is extreme.

God becoming man is extreme because sin is so extreme.

Jesus sacrifices himself. How much more can we just be

living sacrifices who obediently get on the altar like Isaac

before Abraham? Son, here's what God wants then.

That's what I want, daddy. I don't understand it, but I'll

do it. Daddy.

I humbly entrust my present and my future to my father.

This is safe. This is good.

This is what holiness actually looks like.

We often reference playing church and then there's stronger

churches like salt. Thank God they go, oh, I think

we're not like those American churches that play church and

thank God we're not. And there, there, there are many

good churches, but then there's still, it always comes back down

to me, though. But what am I doing?

I'm thankful that I've got a good church.

I'm thankful that I've got a good pastor.

I'm thankful that, that we prioritize the word and prayer

and fellowship and, and we're, we're kind.

But, but man, am I false? Am I false?

Is there anything false in me? God, I'm scared of going to

hell. I'm scared of Jesus.

But so many people, they have No Fear of God in their eyes.

Well, I thought God loves me. He does, He does which is why he

warns you about the torment where he will burn you forever.

All the things are true at the same time.

It's a both and message. It's not an either or.

God so loved the world that he gave his only son.

Why? Because we're already condemned.

We're condemned already. If you read past John 3 verse 16

John 3:16

you find we're condemned. The status is you're pre doomed.

So ask God right now if he hasn't already put his finger on

something. For revelation, for conviction,

and for strength to take the fullest action possible.

You know how Olympians train? They train to win the gold

medal. People don't train to just

qualify to make it to the Olympics.

You want the maximum, you want the best, and you want the

highest. We want the most.

And the other thing that the Scripture teaches us in this

moment, Jesus makes it sound like we're giving something up,

but at the same time we're not because we're gaining the better

thing. Our flesh thinks we're losing,

but the Lord is offering us a feast.

He's saying, hey, give up the Lucky Charms and come look at

the table that I've set for you. And we're going, Oh, but the

sugar, the dopamine, the food dies.

The marshmallows. Yeah, I know technically it's

edible, but it'll kill you compared to the feast in the

table that I've set for you. I'm going to keep your cup

overflowing. I'll set a table for you in the

presence of your enemies. And it'll be real food.

It'll be real nourishment. It'll be real sustenance.

It'll be a real nutrient. We can never sacrifice, even

though we're talking about sacrificing.

It's a ridiculous principle to think you and I could ever

sacrifice because that implies I gave something up that was

valuable. And I don't have anything as

valuable as the thing that I get, which is him sacrifice for

the Lord. Who am I?

What is my life? Jim Michael sacrificed himself

that day and laid down his life for all these people.

Who am I? What do I, I, I get Jesus.

OK, I, I don't think I sacrificed anything.

We want to do the fullest action possible, to live in freedom and

to live with the relief that comes from living in holiness.

Holiness is a relief, a clean conscience.

You sleep good at night. God, I love you.

God help me. This is not extra credit Church.

This message from Jesus is not an extra credit message.

This is not a Navy SEAL Christianity.

This is entry level. You will never even enter the

Kingdom unless you be like little children.

God, what does my sackcloth and ashes need to be?

What does my freedom look like? Lord, your ways are perfect.

You're so good. You are good, better than we

think, and there's nothing we could really sacrifice.

You command us to be a living sacrifice and still we know God,

that we need to crucify the flesh and that we are so clever.

We're so clever. I'm so clever at making

justifications and and squirming away from the loving guidance,

the loving finger of the Holy Spirit.

Who would say this needs to go? God, I pray that you would fill

us with the Holy Spirit and with power, a power that cleanses, a

power that draws us nearer to you for loving fellowship, for

sweet affection, for humble hearts.

God, see your children this morning and truly bring us and

grant us repentance. Whatever is needed, I pray for

every believer that they would walk out their obedience fully

and completely. Carry out whatever you've called

them to. They will lead to their life and

their joy. We thank you for being so

gracious and so patient with us. We should all be in hell

already, but for the grace of God we would be.

Thank you for mercy for God help us to not take it for granted.

I plead the blood of Jesus over your people in Jesus name and

now the Lord bless you and keep you.

The Lord make his face Shinedown upon you, and be gracious to

you. The Lord lift up his countenance

upon you and give you great peace in Jesus name, Amen.